[Update] Yesterday, we reported on the death of the Transportation Climate Initiative (below), another taxation without representation scheme that would milk motorists to fund progressive boutique climate interests.
Charlie Baker, a huge supporter, backed out, leaving only Rhode Island, which had stepped away but not formally retracted its interest in the scheme. With Baker out and Connecticut long gone, RI has said it is done trying to make it work. TCI has no takers and is dead and buried.
But not the scheme.
Laundering money is still the goal, and transportation is a target, but gaming gas taxes down people’s throats was not an option when gas was cheap. Now that it’s not cheap, the agenda is still there, as is the will. “As Baker’s office said it would do in the Bay State, Rhode Island plans to combat climate change using other financing means.”
The goal is to replace gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles. A pipe dream in a world where the advocates of the remove oppose the sorts of power generation necessary to reach even a fraction of their stated goal.
That means that the solution to their problem is not how to make driving a luxury; it is to remove these yahoos from the office, so they are no longer your problem.
Original Article
While reanimation is always a threat Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI), another scheme to punish low and middle-income families to pad state coffers is DEAD.
Massachusetts TransDemocrat Governor Charlie Baker has been bitterly clinging to TCI as a new revenue stream. It would add a commission imposed tax on all motor fuel. A tax passed down to drivers, the money laundered through the commission and back to states under the assumption they would use it to save the planet.
Sure, if by “planet,” you mean to gaping holes in irresponsible state budgets.
We’ve got about 50 articles related to the scheme, including news and commentary about almost every state that considered and then dropped the idea of joining. I won’t rehash that here because that might look like gloating.
But I am. Gloating.
So, what happened? How did this “we have to have this or we’re all going to die” climate cult cash grab lose favor so quickly? The only climate politicians care about is the one that gets them re-elected.
“The Baker-Polito Administration always maintained the Commonwealth would only move forward with TCI if multiple states committed, and, as that does not exist, the transportation climate initiative is no longer the best solution for the Commonwealth’s transportation and environmental needs,” said Terry MacCormack, the governor’s press secretary, in a statement.
Even before Bidenflation, the idea of saddling working-class voters with a massive gas tax was a tough sell. But it was one Baker and Company was prepared to embrace. A de facto gas tax that could go up and generate revenue outside the election process is a dream come true for progressives on both sides of the Climate Cult aisle.
The economy has since gone into a slide, and I’m sure someone has pointed out to Gov. “Charlie Parker” that 2022 is looking like a steeper slide. Piling a tax onto that is not what voters want. Oh, and all the other rats already jumped ship.
A regional plan to reduce emissions, even just on paper, needed more than one interested party. Wallflower Baker had no one else with which to dance, so he’s headed for the exit, and he’s not coming back. A non-possibility not all that long ago.
Katie Theoharides, the governor’s secretary of energy and environmental affairs, said in December 2020, when Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia announced they were moving forward with the transportation climate initiative, that Massachusetts needed the program if it was going to have a chance of reaching its goal of net zero emissions. “We can’t get there without a program like this,” she said.
They’ll have to find another way. A third way, perhaps? Or did someone finally have to admit that zero-emissions are just another fairy tale cheaters tell to justify frisking voters down for cash? That even if everyone signed on, it would have always been about redistributing money from people who could least afford it to pay for the priorities of people who could.
TransDemocrat Charlie Baker was one of the most vocal supporters, and now he’s left the room.
The deal is dead. TCI is dead.
Here’s to hoping it stays that way.
Originally published Nov. 19,2021
